Art & Inspiration Traditional images that need no explanation.

Remember this car running at Detroit Dragway. Very loud!

 

They bring back memories.

 

1939 L.A. Herald Examiner photo of Belmont Shore area of Long Beach
That is a nice "wave." pun intended...

Hello,

With all of So Cal being affected by the most recent Hurricane to strong tropical storm to hit the area since 1939, comparisons were made and old photo stories popped up to whet the appetite for flashy news in this digital world. Living on the coastal areas for 60 plus years, we have seen the circuit of storms from the North that come down from Alaska and across the Pacific Ocean with a fury. In the summer, we do get some residuals from any hurricane/tropical storms from the Southern Hemisphere or near Mexico. But, most of those turn at the first sign of cold water currents and head to the warmer waters in the direction of Hawaii.

We have not seen the power of a storm so close to So Cal, ever. Some storms rain heavily, have swirling winds and pelt So Cal for days. But, this one came as close to the region with a mind of its own. One side of our house sits facing a direction that gets some rain, but not as much as the other three sides. With the swirling storm of Hillary swirling around as it moved into So Cal was an eye opener.

The rain pattern was normal light to extremely heavy. The winds did accentuate the angle of water and how hard it hit our homes. But, it was the movement of the swirling storm that caused most of the damages to homes and businesses. The swirling effect just caused the most rain that hit that side of our house with a fury. It did cause some flooding in the yard that normally does not get that much rain in the short attacks. We had some household flooding that we never saw for the 20+ years we have lived here in So Cal coastal area.

It was amazing that the areas we always cruised with our teenage hot rods to the fun college days, Belmont Shore and the Peninsula has always been a part of our lives. My wife and her roommate had a very small apartment on the ocean side of the Peninsula during their last college years.

The apartment was near the last open sand area as seen by thousands of cruisers and during our teenage years. Almost every hot rod/cruiser/trucks and a Flathead sedan delivery made the road trip almost a weekly event.

We always saw a wide open sandy beach on the ocean shoreline that stretched for a very long distance. There are/were a row of homes along the ocean side of the peninsula, but they are quite far down the open beach. But, questions always pop up for most travelers/visitors. Why is there a single home on the ocean front sandy beach and then none until several long block distances away?

In our teenage years, my friend and I worked in a Christmas Tree Lot in Bixby Knolls about 10 miles North. A nice lady came into the lot and asked if we could make an 8 foot tall white flocked tree for her. Yes, and I got to work on the flocking procedure. She wanted us to deliver her tree to her house in Belmont Shore. As we were about to close for the night, she tempted us with a hefty tip. As it was a distance to the ocean.

The house was the last one on the sand that we had seen plenty of times during our cruising days. The Alamitos Bay was across the street. But from one angle, it looked like this house was the only one built on the sandy shoreline. We set up the tree and she gave us some warm hot chocolate. It was very nice inside. Over the years we always wondered why her house was the only one standing on that side of the beach area.

Jnaki

The 1939 California Tropical Storm, also known as the 1939 Long Beach Tropical Storm, and El Cordonazo, was a tropical cyclone that affected Southern California in September 1939

“El Cordonazo de San Francisco, or the Lash of St. Francis, is the name for the killer hurricane winds and tropical cyclones that fairly regularly terrorize the West Coast of Mexico and Central America in the late summer, around the Oct. 4 feast day of St. Francis. It’s an aptly ferocious term that accounts for a reasonable fear in the countries it ravages.”

“It certainly sounds sinister enough to those of us in Southern California where we prioritize our fears, giving greater weight in our triage of tragedy to fretting about earthquakes, wildfires, drought and heat. But 84 years ago on Sept. 25, the lash came down on Long Beach, Los Angeles and coastal cities from Point Magu to Huntington Beach, hitting land near San Pedro, in the first time that a tropical storm spawned by a hurricane made landfall in Southern California.”

“El Cordonazo, is a regular occurrence in Venezuela, Panama and the west coast of Mexico, but “what we usually get here are the remnants from these hurricanes, like the big tropical storm of 1939.”
A view of the storm wreckage looking west from 55th Place on the Alamitos Peninsula. Photo courtesy of Long Beach Public Library.

(yellow arrow) 55th place is at the ocean side on the corner of the sand and homes at the Northern end of the Peninsula area of oceanfront homes. The older lady’s lone beachfront house is the dark “v” shaped area on the far reaches of the empty beach on the current map. (Red arrow)

 

A little ribbing going on aimed at Isky’s advertising practices.

 

Got to be the Nats in '63, Jegs hadn't installed a blower yet !